Supercharge Your Benefits with Contrast Storytelling

Your copy has to convey the benefits of buying, period. But have you thought about how to best frame those benefits?

The Framing Effect is a psychological response in which people react to a particular choice in different ways depending on how it’s presented.

For example, we tend to want to avoid pain more than we want to gain a benefit, so heading straight into benefits with your copy can hurt your conversion rate.

Telling a story that creates contrast between the pain of loss and those benefits, however, is a frame that works wonders. That’s because you’re explicitly reminding your prospect about what they want to avoid before you talk about what they gain.

So when crafting your copy, contrasting two polarizing alternatives to best illustrate the profound experiential differences that your product or service provides can lead to drastically more sales.

For example, many successful ads over the years have used storytelling to contrast failure or a mediocre outcome with success. Keep in mind that you want to lead with the negative example, then follow with the more beneficial solution, which will now be perceived as more powerful.

Who do they want to become?

Likewise, Social Comparison Theory tells us that we tend to compare ourselves with others who we’re similar to. Upward social comparison means that we seek to emulate others who we perceive as doing better than us, but only if we feel similar enough to them that their status is achievable.

This allows you to present an idealized version of who your prospect wants to become. As always, it comes down to first understanding who you’re trying to persuade, so that they clearly recognize themselves as they are today, who they’d like to avoid becoming, and finally who they’d like to become similar to with the help of your product or service.

Once you understand that, you can tell a story with your copy that first explicitly states the loss they’re trying to avoid, which frames your beneficial promises in a more compelling light.

Don’t forget to spend time on who they don’t want to become first. The power of contrast and the overriding desire to avoid pain and negative social status means that your positive example won’t have to be over the top or unbelievable in order to be effective.

Example: StudioPress Sites

I recently wrote a video script for StudioPress Sites that uses this type of contrast storytelling.

Take a look, and the first person in the comments who can name the classic sales letter I paid homage to gets a gold star (and maybe a pony).

Reader Comments (11)

Hi, I’ve instinctively used this technique before, just to be told by my client that they don’t want to start their message on a negative note. How do I convince them to look past this unfounded “fear”?

They need to better understand human psychology. This technique is used all the time in sales. For example, Realtors will often show one or two undesirable listings before showing the home they think is actually a good fit for the buyer. The contrast with the initial homes makes the “good” listing even more attractive.

I worked on Madison Avenue for many years. From my experience, it’s the so-called challenger brands that are comfortable using a negative story to frame their solution. They were the most rewarding clients to work for. But challenger brands need to be found because not everyone wants to do it that way.

Brand leaders, or maybe even companies that believe themselves to be, are generally reluctant to tell stories with a negative angle. Sometimes it works out for them. Brand leaders tend to have advantages in other areas that marketing, and sometimes can get by with a more bland message. Often, these brands are socially connected in their industry and don’t want to step on any toes.

StudioPress Sites seems to fall into the challenger brand camp. It’s entered a crowded market. The video was excellent in framing a negative in a friendly, enlightening way.

That’s a good point. Although given that our audience is mostly SMBs, I’m guessing most here are almost always the challenger in some sense. Even if it just boils down to unique positioning in a “me too” environment.

Definitely. We’re all challenging something with a good small business idea. I was mainly addressing Elane’s issue.

Most every client should embrace this approach, however, given that some can’t allow themselves to stand out in this way could spur an agency or services provider to seek other clients who will. Turning a conservative client into a challenger brand is difficult. Educating can take time you don’t have, can’t bill for, and not change the situation.

BTW Martin Conroy, the writer of that letter, used that “these two individuals” narrative flow that had been around before he “invented” it again, but his narrative was brilliantly implemented and produced an unbelievable result of course (more than $2,000,000,000 over almost twenty years!). So I love that you revived it here … Nice!

The video was obviously crafted by someone who knows stuff. It doesn’t start with fear and failure. Anne is doing well and Ethan isn’t. How can this be? Tell me more. We see their stories and the hero wins. Poor Ethan. He tries so hard, but he’s just not making good decisions. See how happy Anne is? It’s a screenplay in a few minutes. An elevator pitch. It doesn’t beat you over the head with the usual “do you want this girl? Do you want this car?” (even though I love some of those). By the end, you see the possibilities.

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